The Leopard of Rudraprayag was a male man-eating

Man-eater

Man-eater is a colloquial term for an animal that preys upon humans. This does not include scavenging. Although human beings can be attacked by many kinds of animals, man-eaters are those that have incorporated human flesh into their usual diet...

 leopard, claimed to have killed over 125 people. It was eventually killed by famed big cat hunter and author Jim Corbett

Jim Corbett (hunter)

Edward James "Jim" Corbett was a British hunter, conservationist, author and naturalist, famous for slaying a large number of man-eating tigers and leopards in India....

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The first victim of the leopard was from village Benji. For eight years, no one dared move alone at night on the road between the Hindu shrines of Kedarnath and Badrinath, for it passed through the leopard's territory, and few villagers would leave their houses. The leopard

Leopard

The leopard , Panthera pardus, is a member of the Felidae family and the smallest of the four "big cats" in the genus Panthera, the other three being the tiger, lion, and jaguar. The leopard was once distributed across eastern and southern Asia and Africa, from Siberia to South Africa, but its...

 was apparently so desperate for food that it would break down doors, leap through windows, claw through the mud or thatch walls of huts and drag people from them, devouring them. The British Parliament requested the aid of Corbett in the autumn of 1925. In the town of Rudraprayag there is a sign-board which marks the spot where the leopard was shot. There is a fair held at Rudraprayag commemorating the killing of the leopard and people there often consider Jim Corbett a Sadhu

Sadhu

In Hinduism, sādhu denotes an ascetic, wandering monk. Although the vast majority of sādhus are yogīs, not all yogīs are sādhus. The sādhu is solely dedicated to achieving mokṣa , the fourth and final aśrama , through meditation and contemplation of brahman...

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Corbett's notes revealed that this leopard, an elderly male, was suffering from serious gum recession and tooth loss. Recent analysis of many of the man-eaters taken by Corbett and other hunters has shown a pattern, in which the animals are too sick or compromised to hunt their normal prey, and thus turn to hunting humans, who are much easier to hunt and kill than wild game.

In media

The animal was the subject of the 2005 BBC Two

BBC Two

BBC Two is the second television channel operated by the British Broadcasting Corporation in the United Kingdom. It covers a wide range of subject matter, but tending towards more 'highbrow' programmes than the more mainstream and popular BBC One. Like the BBC's other domestic TV and radio...

 TV Series Manhunters

Manhunters (drama)

Manhunters was a three-part TV Drama Series that Aired on BBC Two in the United Kingdom in Autumn 2005. It tells the story of three cases of Man-eaters through the memoirs of those who hunted them and, in the case of the third episode, accidentally unleashed them on their community...

, in the Episode The Man-Eating Leopard of Rudraprayag.